O’Shea was a risky pre-season signing in many ways: past his peak, and slightly average even at his peak.

But he has been more than adequate in defence, and presents a danger up front at corners. It’s been a long time coming, but he got his first goal for Coventry City. It was an atypical situation for him - receiving the ball in open play just outside the box:

In off the post, lovely. Incidentally - see where Marcos chests the ball down following the initial clearance? Well, in PESes past, I’d have first-timed a volley at the goal, but in PES2008 the shoot button seems to be disabled in these kinds of circumstances. Thus I have become adept at doing what I did with Marcos here: turning away, shielding the ball, and laying it off.

In this game I was constantly battling for possession and trying to make something happen. Some matches are just like that. Blackburn scored again to make the score 1-2. Who should step up to get my second equaliser but Braafheid, my other so-far non-scoring defender:

In off the same post. How peculiar.

After losing 1-2 to Man Utd (tough game) and then thumping the Villa 4-2, I received a notification message: qualification for next season’s European Championships was assured. It was mathematically impossible for me to finish outside the top 6.

This left a couple of fairly meaningless games to get out of the way before the end of the season. All that was at stake was whether I would finish 3rd or 4th. I had my heart set on 3rd, and played accordingly.

I destroyed Arsenal 4-2 at their ground. Or better to say: Schwarz destroyed them. I was 3-0 up by half time thanks to yet another Schwarz hat trick. His third goal was a bit special:

Another replay angle showed that I’ve still not achieved my aim of planting a long-ranger in the ‘postage stamp’ corner of the net just yet. The ball veers toward the centre of the goal. Schwarz’s shooting power alone beats the keeper. (I’ll post a clip here of this other replay view in a day or two.)

Arsenal came back at me, scoring two completely lame goals that made me groan. Happily, I went up their end late on and secured the win with a poacher’s goal from Chiesa.

Going into the final game of the season against Anderlecht, Schwarz was the division’s top score with 23 goals. Rooney was just behind him with 22. I thought Rooney was sure to score at least one goal in Man Utd’s final game. I played Schwarz against Anderlecht despite his stamina bar being only three quarters full. I figured it was worth the risk, as it was the last game of the season and there was always the chance he’d sneak a goal or two.

I beat Anderlecht 4-1. Traore got a hat trick this time. Bramble headed in from a corner. Schwarz had a poor game, lumbering around with his low stamina.

There was no need to worry, though. Rooney didn’t score, and Schwarz finished the season as the Golden Boot winner.

I finished 3rd by two points (Liverpool drew their last game).

So Chelsea won the league with 93 points - 18 ahead of me - and they lost only 3 games all season. That’s fairly realistic, I suppose - real league winners tend not to lose more than a handful of games all season. It’s something I’ll have to replicate next season if I’m going to challenge for the league - as I expect to do. I’ll be looking for at least three top-drawer players in the negotiations coming up.

——————–

Here’s something I’ve never done before: my Player of the Season, and my personal favourite Goal of the Season.

Schwarz has to be Player of the Season. He got 23 goals in 38 games - and he should have had more. With better players and more experience next season, I’d hope for Schwarz to get 50 goals.

Marcos and Guimaraes are joint runners-up for Player of the Season. Marcos has been superb for a player of such modest abilities. Guimaraes has become a true star in my team. But Schwarz’s all-round performances - not just his goals - have been consistently phenomenal all season.

My Goal of the season: Reyes vs Bolton. You’ll see hundreds of ‘better’ goals in all kinds of places, but this is my personal favourite right now - I just love the technique, the lack of backlift, the high graceful loop over the keeper (I’m gushing with praise about Reyes here, not myself. All I do is press buttons):

In many ways I prefer the long-range Schwarz strike from the Arsenal game, but the Reyes goal just looks beautiful.

And so that was season 2011. No relegation battle this time. Just a season of consolidation. If I’d got to grips with PES2008 a bit quicker (what was wrong with me this year?), I’d have been challenging for the title. I’m ready and waiting for the start of season 2012. I’ll be shooting for the Treble. Scoring 81 goals in a season would have won me the league by a long way in previous instalments of the game.

I’ll score 100+ goals next season. The question is: how many will I let in?

Final position: 3rd (75 pts)
Won:23 Drew:6 Lost:9
Goals scored:81 Goals conceded:47 Goal difference:+34
Yellow cards: 31 Red cards: 6

Guimaraes has got to the stage where he is no longer merely a promising young player - he’s arrived as a fully-fledged star player. Defensively I have no complaints about him at all. Not much gets past him now that his stats have been beefed up by several seasons’ solid play. Going forward, he’s a proper Roberto Carlos (without those mostly anticlimactic free kicks).

Here’s a great long-range goal from Guimaraes in a 6-1 rout of Everton:

I think that’s the longest long-ranger I’ve scored yet in PES2008. I’d be delighted with it if only it was placed higher up in the net. In PES there’s nothing quite like a long-distance, high, curling, dipping, screamer of a goal. This Guimaraes goal is good, but I dislike how low down it is. It’s almost a daisycutter. Keepers should never be beaten by long-range daisycutters. The dreadful state of the goalkeepers in PES2008 should never have got past Konami’s first playtest phase - if there even was a playtest phase, of course…

Schwarz scored four of the other goals. He’s neck-and-neck with Rooney for the Golden Boot at the moment.

Schwarz is now so prolific that I expect him to bag at least a hat trick in every game. He certainly gets the chances to do it. It’s a rare game where I don’t create at least five good chances for him, and usually more.

When I’m in the groove - concentrating fully, no distractions, not thinking of anything else but the game - a 4-3-3 with a good squad of players is pretty much unstoppable.

This is something I found the other night when I played online for the first time. Setting aside the horrific technical problems that marred all but one or two of the games, I was more than able to hold my own.

When I left the formations in their default states - usually a standard 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 - I struggled to create openings up front. But whenever I took a minute beforehand to rearrange the players into my beloved 4-3-3 with a deep DMF, I was a danger. The only thing I had to watch out for was the counter-attack - and I paid the price more than once. Somebody playing as Brazil (I was Argentina) completely destroyed me 3-0, my heaviest defeat of the session.

When the lag and out of sync problems weren’t effectively wrecking any kind of gameplay on the pitch, I had an enjoyable time. Playing against ‘people’ made a refreshing change from playing the AI. I suspect that PES2008 gameplay has been optimised with online in mind. (A possible reason why the single-player game feels curiously easy, and a bit flat, this year.)

Online could be where PES2008 finds its longevity - which makes it all the more urgent that Konami knuckles down and gets it sorted out. Online play is definitely something I’d want to return to in the future. As things stand, I won’t be going near the online game again until I hear that it has been sorted - or until I finally crack and get an Xbox360. As well as the 360’s relatively flawless PES2008, other games like Bioshock and Mass Effect are starting to tempt me.

Getting back to my Master League, the only time I feel in real danger now is when a fast, determined CPU team collects the ball after one of my attacks and sweeps down to my end. This is where my alt 5-4-1 formation (mapped to a strategy button) has come in very handy. Switching between my starting 4-3-3 and the alt 5-4-1, and back again, is a press of two buttons away. It drags my players by the scruff of their necks back to defend in depth and in numbers, snuffing out the counter.

I’ve also spent some time tinkering with my other alt formation - the ultra-attacking 1-2-4-3, mapped to L2+Square. That formation was really only good for one thing: extreme attacking play in the final third. Losing the ball was a nightmare. There was no way my forward players (i.e. nearly all of them) could ever get back in time.

So I’ve amended it to an attacking formation that I can actually play with for some time. One that reduces the chances of being sliced open on the counter attack. A 3-2-2-3. The defensive line is set to high, and the Offside Trap is set to frequent. All three CBs have full defensive duties; the DMFs are on medium defending, but with run arrows pointing back to my goal; and everyone else is on full attack-attack-ATTACK mode.

It’s a formation I can leave on for much longer periods than I ever dared to leave the 1-2-4-3 on for.

After the Everton romp, I went on a mini-run of defeats. Poor defeats: 0-2 to Bolton, who I beat easily at the start of the season. I lost 2-1 at West Ham, picking up two red cards as my frustration grew.

Then it was Chelsea. I was nervous before this one, spending an uncharacteristic amount of time in the formation and the Regulate Condition screens. I took to the field and scored early, then had to withstand almost constant pressure for the remainder of the half. The CPU had the ball and I was not going to get it back. I’m trying to wean myself off talking about scripting, but it’s mighty hard. Every loose ball went to Chelsea. There. That’s my ration used up for the whole week.

Chelsea got their equaliser early in the second half, as I knew they would. The game went on with both teams attacking dangerously but not really creating a clear-cut scoring chance. Both goalkeepers were as butterfingered with weak shots as ever in PES2008, but there was always a defender on hand to clear up the mess.

Donadel played in this game - a rare appearance after I’d noticed him sitting on the bench with a red form arrow and a full stamina bar. I played him as DMF, for old time’s sake.

I know the rhythms of a Master League by now - the patterns of players’ comings and goings - and Donadel is not long for this world. I’ll be shipping him out at the end of the season. It makes me feel sad after all he has done for me so far. His arrival in season 2009 was the match that lit the blue touchpaper that ignited the run that swept me to promotion from Division 2.

After giving him this build-up, you’ll more than likely know what came next. Donadel scored the winner against Chelsea - a diving header in the six-yard box, in the 90th minute. It was probably Donadel’s last appearance and last goal for me in PES2008.

*Moment of silence*

I’m back up to 3rd place in the table. There are six games left in the season. I will only catch Man Utd to take 2nd place if they lose most or all of their remaining games and I win all of mine. It’s not going to happen. Liverpool in 4th place are level with me on points, but have a poorer goal difference. I really want to hang on to that 3rd spot.

Losing in one Cup might be regarded as unfortunate. Losing in two smacks of carelessness… Getting myself knocked out of both Cups was a PES2008 reality check.

It doesn’t matter if you play well in some games, or even if you play brilliantly in most games. You have to perform consistently in every game to win anything in the Master League.

Chelsea are currently riding high at the top of Division 1. They’ve lost just 2 games all season and are 10 points clear of Man Utd in second place. The lesson for me is clear. Thumping a Division minnow 5-0 every now and again is good for morale and good for goal difference. But if I go out in the next game against a team like Blackburn, say, and manage ‘only’ to draw, or even lose, I’m never going to get anywhere.

Now that I am concentrating solely on the league, I have a full squad of players to draw upon for every game.

Before resuming normal week-by-week league life, I made an adjustment to the First XI. Bradley has shown enough quality to convince me that he should replace Muntari as my automatic first-choice DMF.

I was repaid for my faith in Bradley in his first full game in the First XI. I took on Sunderland - my old enemy - and beat them 4-2.

Bradley really does have it all. Strength, balance, shooting. And a nice dribble too. It really is an easy PES year when routinely even I am going on runs like this, and scoring with a few of them:

I want to finish the season in the top 6 at the very least. The top 2 would be a bonus. I think Manchester United are too far ahead of me to catch them now. There are ten games left and 30 points to play for, though, so anything is possible. I need to win all or most of my remaining games and hope that Man Yoo lose enough of theirs to let me catch up. That almost never happens in PES, though. The teams at the top tend to stick there until the end.

I picked up a couple of 1-0 wins, including a valuable one against the team just beneath me in the table, Liverpool. The winner was a nice diving header by Schwarz from a decent cross by Braafheid.

I’m really glad now that I didn’t get rid of Braafheid in the mid-season negotiations. Pacy SBs who can launch dangerous raids down the wings - and also defend a bit - are hard to come by. And I have two. Guimaraes over on the right side continues to grow into a monster of a player. I keep going on about Schwarz, but Guimaraes has been another success story from the pool of young talent that I assembled back in my first couple of otherwise disastrous seasons.

I’m up to third now and should hold steady until the end of the season. It looks like I’ll be playing at the top European table next season. I’m 9 points ahead of the team in 7th place, and I have a superior goal difference to anyone else in the Division.

I’ve scored 54 goals in 28 games this season. Only Man Utd are anywhere near me in terms of goals scored. However, my goals conceded total is among the very worst - only the teams down in the relegation zone have conceded more. Lucky for me I found my shooting boots this season.